p. 24 | Prophecy and the Bahai Movement

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 6, 1916

Prophecy and the Bahai Movement

THE daily press often publishes notes which remind one of the fulfilment of prophecy. We are told that in the last days men’s hearts will fail them for fear as they think of the things coming on the earth. There is another prophecy which says that false prophets will arise and deceive many. Both of these scriptures seem to be fulfilled by a prophecy made by a prophetess of the Bahai cult.

Bahaism claims to be the sum total and union of all religions. The Bahaist believes in the equal recognition of Moses, Christ, and Mohammed. The movement claims 9,000,000 adherents among Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians. It has even spread to the United States, where it has representatives in twenty-one cities.

The Bahai prophetess referred to predicts a tremendous war in America, “greater, far greater, than the war in Europe.” She claims, however, that the angel of destruction is to wipe out all the mean, selfish, and wicked from all portions of the world, and that about Dec. 31, 1999, there will be left 144,000 “angel-marked individuals” inhabiting the earth. This prophecy of a coming millennium on this earth is, of course, contrary to the teachings of the Scriptures, which point to a reign of the saints in heaven during the thousand years.

THE Papacy is making every effort to assure herself a place in the peace congress which it is thought will be called at the conclusion of the present European war. It is doubtless her purpose to do what she can to recover her lost prestige, and possibly even her lost temporal power.

A dispatch from Rome published in the Washington Post of May 23, indicates that Italy will probably protest vigorously against any participation by the Vatican in peace negotiations. Signor Ernesto Nathan, former mayor of Rome, and leader of the anticlerical party in Italy, is said to maintain that the Pope as head of the church has no place in a peace congress, unless the heads of all other churches whose communities have been involved in the war shall also be present. This opinion, however, is not unanimous among Italian leaders, for some are inclined to grant the right of the Papacy to have a share in the peace negotiations. This dispatch from Rome also asserts “that Germany and Austria will insist on the Vatican’s having a representative when the peace parley is finally opened.”

What do the prophecies of the Bible indicate will take place? Our minds turn to the passage in Revelation where it says that the ten kings shall be of one mind to give their power and authority to the beast. To the Bible student this seems to indicate a reestablishment of the political power of the Papacy.